


aegri somnia vana

by honeymink



Category: The Borgias
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a mirror, darkly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	aegri somnia vana

**Author's Note:**

> written for 'The Borgias' kink meme

Not much made sense in this world. Except for his mother. She could always be counted on. Cesare woke up sweat-drenched in his chambers under a veil of congealed blood and was still naked.

"Be reasonable, Lucrezia." He heard Vanozza outside the door. "You brought it on the boy yourself."

He grew drowsy listening to her soothing voice, but when his sister spoke the world in its cold fury with all its living and dead came storming across the hall to his room in a Last Judgement. His ears pained him and for an instant he wanted to flee from the racket and clamour into his own voice. Get up and yell back at her. Instead he closed his eyes.

"Poison. Tell me about poison," she had demanded earlier. Wordless, his eyes had pleaded with her over their father's reasoning. The unbearable weight of the deed would not be hers to carry.

He thought he went down to the opium den, where he found Juan, elated and loving, where he stabbed him, where in his death throes he denied his brother one last kiss to deliver them both from evil. Cesare longed for that kiss now. Tears of blood. Tears of the poppy. Tears of salt and lust. He thought he had shoved Juan in the Tiber, the memory as clear as an unmuddied river.

 _But how treacherous his mind was, trading idle wishes for reality!_ Lucrezia had taken his guilt upon her, had stabbed Juan with his own dagger while her paramour slit her brother's throat. _What effrontery! A peasant with a pope's daughter!_ Pedro, the messenger, Paolo, the groom. They had breathed their last, it was no matter. Juan had been right all along, they… he, Cesare, could not suffer their angelic sister's trysts. So he had coloured the papal robes with the boy's blood and raised his arms in triumph, Lucrezia at his feet on the bare floor. Her ginger hair glistening in the bright light, she had prayed the rosary, so rich in suffering.

"Giulia Farnese is a bitch!" Lucrezia now said into the darkness. She sat down on the edge of his bed, a suet candle flickered on the table. Cesare thought about chandeliers. "Why did you permit her…" Her voice trailed off as her fingertips traced the welts on his back and bottom. Cesare winced, his wounds burning hot as she applied an ointment of chickweed, mastic and lard. Caresses, sweet and astringent for his maltreated body.

"I would not know of a reasonable answer to your question, sis." Cesare replied truthfully.

 

*** 

Last night, experiencing the raptures of the killing, or so he thought, he took to bed early. Still in this sensual frenzy as he woke he was no longer alarmed even when he closed his eyes and a dark spot went on dancing across the pulsing, murky red to which his eyelids had muted the morning light. Juan was finally dead. Cesare smiled. Yet, with Pantesilea's cold body next to him, her blood soaking the sheets, he knew he should do something. Call for Micheletto perhaps. But his blissful exhaustion was greater than any fear.

"Count the cost, Cardinal Borgia." Giulia Farnese kicked the pale leg of the dead maid negligently. "Suffer for your sins. You took a valuable asset from me."

Although startled at first and then perplexed to see his father's mistress in his chambers, he rose slowly onto his ellbows and laughed at what he presumed was a joke.

She wore a gown of purple velvet which reminded him unpleasantly of his old bishop robes. Gold tassels like Juan had on one of his silly berets adorned the wide hanging sleeves. Her hair was curly and brunette, much like his own. Vacantly he stared into her eyes that glimmered viciously. There was nothing ethereal about her, nothing enrapturing, she didn't walk on air as he had expected for some reason. She passed something from one hand to the other which, now that he took a closer look, he realised was his penitential whip. An accoutrement coming with his station that unlike his ecclesistical ring he rather forgot about. He certainly had never used it on himself.

"On all fours. Crouch for me like a tiger, Cardinal!" she told him, not playful at all.

He had seen others strike this pose with ease. He thought about it for a moment, thought about Juan, Micheletto and Lucrezia, especially Lucrezia, knees spread apart, bottom raised up, back arched gracefully with the stomach flat on the bed.

"Now," she said firmly, her eyes widening, exasperated as if she seriously wondered what he was waiting for.

"Like a tiger?" he asked mockingly. "Or a panther?"

His eyes narrowed dangerously as he was ready to jump at her like that beast certainly would, if they ever let it out of its golden cage. And so he did, tried to wrestle the whip from her, but she was nimble and mean. Finally he was in a position to choke her. Once she was struggling to breathe, he would wrench the whip from her but she bit him in the arm he had pressed against her throat. Cursing her, he loosened his grip. Instantly she freed herself from him, turned around sharply and let the whip lash over his stomach.

"On your knees or I will scream. I wonder, what will they say if they find me here with you, all naked and a corpse in your bed? What will your precious Lucrezia say?"

Aghast, he stared at the sharp red mark on his skin, panting heavily.

"Seven strokes, no more no less," she suggested. 

 

***

Perhaps it was better to obey. Reluctantly, he got on his knees, turning his back to her. _One, two_. Giulia had taken a full swing, whipping the scourge down and across his behind.

"You don't seem to use this very often."

She sounded surprised. Cesare gulped hard, tears involuntarily bursting into his eyes. He knew she was waiting for him to raise his bottom up again.

"Neither do you," he gritted his teeth and arched his back.

 _Three, four_.

"Not enough flexibility in the wrist. Weight on the wrong foot," he exhaled sharply. "Friendly advice."

She laughed without humour. "Don't get smart with me, Cardinal Borgia."

He couldn’t see the broad welts, but the pain that ran up his spine gave him a good idea what his backside looked like. The heat could be felt an inch away.

"Perhaps you want to recite one of the penitential psalms? Aren't you a priest after all?" she advised him under the crack of the whip.

 _Five_. He stifled a frustrated scream, drool running out of his mouth, in awe of how Micheletto had taken it so calmly when he had whipped him.

"And what would I repent?" he asked, hostile, jaw clenched, nostrils flared.

"Indulge me!" she encouraged him. "Or am I not making a change to your every day humdrum existence?"

 _Six_. Either he was getting used to it or her lashes got weaker.

"Gratias agimus tibi, propter magnam gloriam tuam. Domina Julia, regina caelestis."

 _Seven_. It was over. He breathed out and relaxed. He shouldn't have.

"You think you are clever," she whispered into his ear, as she reached in front of him, grabbing his balls, squeezing them. From the centre of this touch a shudder rose up his spine. Crazed, panicked, he feared he was getting hard. She gave his balls another tight squeeze. "The next time you threaten my brother, you know where that whip will land."

Back on her feet, she threw the whip on the bed. Cesare got up slowly and turned to her. She only nodded, pointing at the maid's corpse on the bed. For a moment he wondered who had really killed her.

"Well," Giulia said. "Will you have it removed right away then? It's very untidy."

 

***

The day had had its ups and downs but Juan was still dead and Cesare was determined to end it on a high note.

"I forgive you," she said as she finished rubbing in the ointment.

Cesare rolled on his side, propping his head up on his ellbow. Under his inquisitive gaze, she pursed her pink lips defiantly and tipped her chin up. The pose seemed strange but familiar at once. He thought about how betrayed he had felt when he had discovered the boy behind the curtain. It didn't appear quite so clear to him whose forgiveness it was to give here. Stroking her thick ginger hair back with his free hand, Cesare chuckled hoarsely. Lucrezia looked at him and smiled a little. Her fingertips ran over his left cheek, lingering a bit over the birthmark under his eye.

"I forgive you too," he said and closed his eyes as she leaned down and kissed his lips.

He came to himself again in a jangling world, feeling a bit silly as always at the end of some great emotion. Cesare looked up at Lucrezia, his fingers running through her loose blonde plaits, those tiny hairs on his body still raised here and there. This time the shivering didn't stop, the sound didn't let go of him until her voice forced him back into this world.

"Thank you, brother," she whispered and smiled a little. "I had wished him dead so many times."

Juan's body drifted out to sea on the Tiber. Cesare had put him there with a few well-aimed stabs of his dagger. Lucrezia had come to his chambers after he had returned and lain down on his bed, feeling relief mostly and surprisingly little guilt.

"Me too," he said and closed his eyes as she leaned down and kissed his cheek.

The hole that Juan had left in their world was only a ridiculous scrap of a larger darkness to be broken again by the rising spring sun. 

 

**~Fin~**


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